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Working Group Report and Nine Policy Recommendations by the PES Working Group on Fighting Voter Abstention
Working Group report and nine policy recommendations by the PES Working Group on fighting voter abstention Chaired by PES Presidency Member Mr. Raymond Johansen Report adopted by the PES Presidency on 17 March 2017 2 Content: 1. Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 2. Summary of the nine policy recommendations…………………………………………………………..………6 3. European elections, national rules….…………………………………………………………………………………. 7 4. The Millennial generation and strategies to connect…………..…………………………………………… 13 5. Seven key issues with nine policy recommendations…………..…………………………………………… 20 Early voting……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 Access to polling stations…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 22 Age limits for voting and standing for election…………………………………………………………………. 23 Voting registration as a precondition…………………………………………………………………………….... 25 Voting from abroad…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..26 Safe electronic systems of voting……………………………………………………………………………………… 28 Citizens’ awareness…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 30 Annexes Summary of the PES working group`s mandate and activity………………………………………..……33 References……..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………41 3 SUMMARY The labour movement fought and won the right to vote for all. Therefore we in particular are concerned about the trend of too many voters not using the fundamental democratic right to vote. Since the European Parliament was first elected in 1979, we have seen turnout steadily decrease. Turnout in 2014 reached a historic low. We must -
Pre-Election Toplines: Oregon Early Voting Information Center 2020 Pre
Oregon RV Poll October 22 - October 31, 2020 Sample 2,008 Oregon Registered Voters Margin of Error ±2.8% 1. All things considered, do you think Oregon is headed in the right direction, or is it off on the wrong track? Right direction . 42% Wrong track . 47% Don’t know . 11% 2. Have you, or has anyone in your household, experienced a loss of employment income since the COVID-19 pandemic began? Yes .....................................................................................37% No ......................................................................................63% 3. How worried are you about your personal financial situation? Veryworried ............................................................................17% Somewhat worried . .36% Not too worried . 33% Not at all worried . 13% Don’tknow ..............................................................................0% 4. How worried are you about the spread of COVID-19 in your community? Veryworried ............................................................................35% Somewhat worried . .34% Not too worried . 19% Not at all worried . 12% Don’tknow ..............................................................................0% 5. How much confidence do you have in the following people and institutions? A great deal of Only some Hardly any No confidence confidence confidence confidence Don’t know Governor Kate Brown 32% 22% 9% 35% 2% Secretary of State Bev Clarno 18% 24% 12% 16% 30% The Oregon State Legislature 14% 37% 21% 21% 8% The officials who run Oregon state elections 42% 27% 12% 12% 7% The officials who run elections in [COUNTY NAME] 45% 30% 10% 7% 8% The United States Postal Service 39% 40% 12% 7% 2% 1 Oregon RV Poll October 22 - October 31, 2020 6. Which of the following best describes you? I definitely will not vote in the November general election . 5% I will probably not vote in the November general election . -
Black Box Voting Ballot Tampering in the 21St Century
This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Black Box Voting — © 2004 Bev Harris Rights reserved to Talion Publishing/ Black Box Voting ISBN 1-890916-90-0. You can purchase copies of this book at www.Amazon.com. Black Box Voting Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century By Bev Harris Talion Publishing / Black Box Voting This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Contents © 2004 by Bev Harris ISBN 1-890916-90-0 Jan. 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever except as provided for by U.S. copyright law. For information on this book and the investigation into the voting machine industry, please go to: www.blackboxvoting.org Black Box Voting 330 SW 43rd St PMB K-547 • Renton, WA • 98055 Fax: 425-228-3965 • [email protected] • Tel. 425-228-7131 This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Black Box Voting © 2004 Bev Harris • ISBN 1-890916-90-0 Dedication First of all, thank you Lord. I dedicate this work to my husband, Sonny, my rock and my mentor, who tolerated being ignored and bored and galled by this thing every day for a year, and without fail, stood fast with affection and support and encouragement. He must be nuts. And to my father, who fought and took a hit in Germany, who lived through Hitler and saw first-hand what can happen when a country gets suckered out of democracy. And to my sweet mother, whose an- cestors hosted a stop on the Underground Railroad, who gets that disapproving look on her face when people don’t do the right thing. -
Voting for Parties Or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Di↵Erence?
Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Di↵erence? Elena Llaudet⇤ Harvard University September 14, 2014 Abstract In this paper, I analyze the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore the impact of electoral institutions on voting behavior. I find that the U.S. is not unique when it comes to party defection, defined as voting for a party other than ones own. Furthermore, when focusing on countries with mixed electoral systems, I find that electoral institutions have a substantial e↵ect on the degree to which the vote choice is party or candidate- centered, and thus, they might, in turn, have an impact on the level of incumbency advantage in the elections. ⇤Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University and current post-doctoral fellow in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School ([email protected]). Elections in the U.S. have long been considered unique, with its candidate-centered pol- itics and high levels of incumbency advantage. In this paper, I aim to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore the e↵ect that electoral institutions have on the voting behavior of the electorate. In particular, I study whether electoral systems a↵ect the likeli- hood of party defection in lower house elections, a phenomenon defined as voting for a party other than one’s own. In addition, to the extent possible, I try to distinguish whether voters are casting a ballot for a di↵erent party for strategic purposes – voting for a party that has higher chances of winning than their preferred one – or to support a particular candidate due to the candidate’s personal attributes, such as incumbency status. -
VVSG Comments
Before the U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION In the Matter of ) COMMENTS SUBMISSION ) VOLUNTARY VOTING SYSTEM ) Pursuant to 84 FR 6775, Doc. No.: 2019-03453 ) GUIDELINES VERSION 2.0 ) Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 ) DEVELOPMENT ) EAC Offices, Silver Spring, MD PUBLIC COMMENTS SUBMISSION OSET INSTITUTE COMMENTS LED BY GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY EDWARD P. PEREZ REGARDING THE VOLUNTARY VOTING SYSTEM GUIDELINES VERSION 2.0 PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES Comment #1 Issue: Principles and Guidelines vs. Functional Requirements Reference: Overall VVSG 2.0 Structure The OSET Institute applauds the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (hereinafter, “EAC”) for making efforts to ensure that the future Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) certification program is more flexible and agile than it has been in the past. With increasingly faster advances of technology matched by newly emerging cyber-security threats, it is essential for the VVSG to support regular adaptation and modification. Toward that end, VVSG 2.0's initial distinction between "Principles and Guidelines" versus "Functional Requirements" is well placed and laudable. In order to deliver on the promise of such a distinction, the OSET Institute believes that the following programmatic requirements must be adhered to: • “Principles and Guidelines" reflect policy statements, and any modifications to the Principles and Guidelines should require approval of EAC Commissioners. • Functional Requirements (and VSTL test assertions) do not represent policy statements, and their modification should not require approval of EAC Commissioners. Functional Requirements are simply the technical means to operationalize or implement the achievement of policy goals represented in the Principles and Guidelines. • Functional Requirements must support the policy goals represented in the Principles and Guidelines. -
Fresh Perspectives NCDOT, State Parks to Coordinate on Pedestrian, Bike Bridge For
Starts Tonight Poems Galore •SCHS opens softball play- offs with lop-sided victory Today’s issue includes over Red Springs. •Hornets the winners and win- sweep Jiggs Powers Tour- ning poems of the A.R. nament baseball, softball Ammons Poetry Con- championships. test. See page 1-C. Sports See page 3-A See page 1-B. ThePublished News since 1890 every Monday and Thursday Reporterfor the County of Columbus and her people. Thursday, May 12, 2016 Fresh perspectives County school Volume 125, Number 91 consolidation, Whiteville, North Carolina 75 Cents district merger talks emerge at Inside county meeting 3-A By NICOLE CARTRETTE News Editor •Top teacher pro- motes reading, paren- Columbus County school officials are ex- tal involvement. pected to ask Columbus County Commission- ers Monday to endorse a $70 million plan to consolidate seven schools into three. 4-A The comprehensive study drafted by Szotak •Long-delayed Design of Chapel Hill was among top discus- murder trial sions at the Columbus County Board of Com- set to begin here missioners annual planning session held at Southeastern Community College Tuesday Monday. night. While jobs and economic development, implementation of an additional phase of a Next Issue county salary study, wellness and recreation talks and expansion of natural gas, water and sewer were among topics discussed, the board spent a good portion of the four-hour session talking about school construction. No plans The commissioners tentatively agreed that they had no plans to take action on the propos- al Monday night and hinted at wanting more details about coming to an agreement with Photo by GRANT MERRITT the school board about funding the proposal. -
Testing Proximity Versus Directional Voting Using Experimentsq
Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 460–471 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Electoral Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud Testing proximity versus directional voting using experimentsq Dean Lacy a,1, Philip Paolino b,* a Dartmouth College, 211A Silsby Hall, HB 6108, Hanover, NH 03755, United States b University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle # 305340, Denton, TX 76203-5017, United States article info abstract Article history: A long-running debate about how voters use issues to evaluate candidates pits the prox- Received 3 July 2009 imity theory of voting against directional theory. Using surveys, both sides of the debate Received in revised form 18 February 2010 have found support for their preferred theory, but disagreement remains because of Accepted 6 April 2010 differing ways of analyzing the data. Lewis and King (2000) point out that these researchers make assumptions that bias results in favor of their theory. To avoid these Keywords: difficulties, our approach creates fictitious candidates with controlled positions, presents Issue voting these candidates to randomly-assigned subjects, and examines the relationship between Proximity ’ Directional subjects evaluations of these candidates and their ideological beliefs as a neutral test of Experiment proximity and directional theory. Our results provide reasonably strong support for proximity theory but little for directional theory. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction voting, voters and candidates have ideal points on a logical ordering of different policies, and voters choose the An important tenet of democracy is that elections allow candidate whose ideal point is nearest to their own (e.g., voters to influence public policy. -
Absentee Voting and Vote by Mail
CHapteR 7 ABSENTEE VOTING AND VOTE BY MAIL Introduction some States the request is valid for one or more years. In other States, an application must be com- Ballots are cast by mail in every State, however, the pleted and submitted for each election. management of absentee voting and vote by mail varies throughout the nation, based on State law. Vote by Mail—all votes are cast by mail. Currently, There are many similarities between the two since Oregon is the only vote by mail State; however, both involve transmitting paper ballots to voters and several States allow all-mail ballot voting options receiving voted ballots at a central election office for ballot initiatives. by a specified date. Many of the internal procedures for preparation and mailing of ballots, ballot recep- Ballot Preparation and Mailing tion, ballot tabulation and security are similar when One of the first steps in preparing to issue ballots applied to all ballots cast by mail. by mail is to determine personnel and facility and The differences relate to State laws, rules and supply needs. regulations that control which voters can request a ballot by mail and specific procedures that must be Facility Needs: followed to request a ballot by mail. Rules for when Adequate secure space for packaging the outgoing ballot requests must be received, when ballots are ballot envelopes should be reviewed prior to every mailed to voters, and when voted ballots must be election, based on the expected quantity of ballots returned to the election official—all defer according to be processed. Depending upon the number of ballot to State law. -
The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Voter Turnout
Western Washington University Western CEDAR WWU Honors Program Senior Projects WWU Graduate and Undergraduate Scholarship Spring 2017 The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Voter Turnout Joel Jordan Western Washington University Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwu_honors Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Jordan, Joel, "The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Voter Turnout" (2017). WWU Honors Program Senior Projects. 43. https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwu_honors/43 This Project is brought to you for free and open access by the WWU Graduate and Undergraduate Scholarship at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in WWU Honors Program Senior Projects by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Voter Turnout Joel Jordan Political Science Honors Thesis Western Washington University 2 Introduction In the most recent midterm congressional elections of 2014, over 83 million people entered the polls to vote for the 435 people who would pass legislation for the next two years (McDonald, 2016). These 83 million people, however, only account for 33% of our voting age population. Explaining the 33% voter turnout for legislative elections in the United States is of interest for three primary reasons. First, the United States has a substantially lower voter turnout than most other electoral democracies in the world. Figure 1 shows the voting age population turnout across 36 countries (IDEA, 2017). These countries contain more than one million people, are classified by the world bank as “High Income,” and are classified by Freedom House as “Free” (CIA, 2015)(World Bank, 2017)(Freedom House, 2017). -
Evidence from Norway How Do Political Rights Influence Immigrant
Voting Rights and Immigrant Incorporation: Evidence from Norway JEREMY FERWERDA, HENNING FINSERAAS AND JOHANNES BERGH ∗ How do political rights influence immigrant integration? In this study, we demonstrate that the timing of voting rights extension plays a key role in fos- tering political incorporation. In Norway, non-citizens gain eligibility to vote in local elections after three years of residency. Drawing on individual-level registry data and a regression discontinuity design, we leverage the exoge- nous timing of elections relative to the start of residency periods to identify the effect of early access to political institutions. We find that immigrants who received early access were more likely to participate in subsequent elec- ∗ Jeremy Ferwerda, Dartmouth College, Department of Government 202 Silsby Hall Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USA, email: [email protected]. Henning Finseraas, Institute for Social Research, P.box 3233 Elisenberg, 0208 Oslo, Norway e-mail: henning.fi[email protected]. Johannes Bergh, Institute for Social Research, P.box 3233 Elisenberg, 0208 Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]. We would like to thank Dag Arne Christensen, Jens Hainmueller, Axel West Pedersen, Victoria Shineman, Øyvind Skorge, and participants at the 6th annual workshop on Comparative Ap- proaches to Immigration, Ethnicity, and Integration, Yale, June 2016, the 6th annual general conference of the European Political Science Association in Brussels, June 2016, and the Politi- cal Behavior workshop in Toronto, November 2016 for useful comments and suggestions. Grant numbers 227072 (Research Council of Norway) and 236786 (Research Council of Norway) are acknowledged. Voting Rights and Immigrant Incorporation 2 toral contests, with the strongest effects visible among immigrants from dic- tatorships and weak democracies. -
Early Voting Faqs
HOW DO I RETURN MY EARLY EARLY VOTING FAQS VOTING BALLOT? If voting in person the voter will return the sealed affidavit envelope containing his/her early voting ballot to the election official. WHAT IS EARLY VOTING? WHERE DO I VOTE EARLY? If voting by mail the voter may Early voting is a process by which All eligible voters may vote in return it by mail to the Election CAN I PICK UP AN ABSENTEE a registered voter can vote prior person at any of the designated Commission office in the BALLOT FOR A FAMILY MEMBER to a scheduled biennial state early voting locations or by mail. envelope provided by this office OR FRIEND? election. Voters can vote early by Unlike Election Day voters are not or the voter may deliver the No. The family member or friend mail or in-person and the ballot assigned a voting location. ballot in person to the Election must come in person to the will be cast on Election Day. You can vote at: Election Commission office or to an Election Commission office or Commission Office, Police election official at a designated request to have the ballot mailed Department Community Room, early voting location during to them. Cambridge Water Department, prescribed early voting hours. WHEN WILL THE EARLY VOTING Main Library, or O’Neill Library I REQUESTED AN EARLY VOTING PERIOD BEGIN AND END? IS EARLY VOTING AVAILABLE BALLOT BUT DID NOT RECEIVE Early voting period for the For complete details: FOR ALL ELECTIONS? IT, WHAT SHOULD I DO? State/Presidential Election to cambridgema.gov/earlyvoting No. -
Referendum Campaigns: Changing What People Think Or Changing What They Think About?1 Michael Marsh
02305_17838_06_cha04.qxp 6/20/2007 2:01 AM Page 63 4 Referendum Campaigns: Changing What People Think or Changing What They Think About?1 Michael Marsh Cohen (1963: 13) made the well-known observation that the media do not so much tell people what to think as tell them what to think about. The same argument is often made with respect to parties in election campaigns as they try to ensure that the focus of the campaign will be on issues that are positive ones for them, or which they own (Schattschneider, 1960; Riker, 1986; Petrocik, 1996; Budge et al., 2001). Less common is to suggest that the same should be true of referendums. This argument can be found in Magelby (1989) and Darcy and Laver (1990) while de Vreese and Semetko (2004) provide an intensive empirical study of the Danish vote on the euro to show how far this happens. The pro-referendum side will try to persuade the public that the referendum is about something the public feels positive about while the anti-referendum side will explain the referendum in terms they think will provoke negative feel- ings. A successful redefinition of the issue may well provoke consider- able volatility in the campaign, and this is much more likely to happen in a referendum (LeDuc, 2002a, 2002b). Of course, the extent to which either side can do this will depend in part on the strength of the respec- tive campaigns. Overall, a weak campaign may leave the electorate sim- ply confused; a strong one should bring more clarity, and an unbalanced one should see voters’ perceptions reflecting the weight of the stronger campaign.